While still an amazing city, Vienna might have been my least favorite of the ones I visited when backpacking across Europe this year. My observation was that the biggest attractions in the city were shopping, and enjoying the plethora of architectural and historical sites. To each their own, but none of these activities are high on my list of favorites. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Vienna. We met up with a lot of our friends from Budapest and had some really good times. I also found a bike to rent and was able to spend almost a full day cycling the city and even all the way to neighboring cities. More importantly, it was a good time to get some much-needed extra rest from all the partying and activities we did in Budapest. Wesley and Camden were both coming down with a minor cold, and also tired from the previous few days, so our time in Vienna was relaxing.
For this leg of the journey, I stayed at JO&JOE hostel with Wesley and Camden. This was the unique building which our hostel was located, near the top. It was a really nice hostel, probably one of the best that I've seen!The hostel had a rooftop bar with an amazing view overlooking the city. It turns out that almost everything is closed in Vienna on Sundays. We did end up finding a sushi restaurant, though, and made friends with the waitress who was an immigrant from Ukraine.The room I was staying at had broken AC for the first few days, which was unfortunate. However, the view from the room made up for it!The day after we arrived, Camden was out of commission due to his cold, and Wesley was catching up on sleep. So I set out on a side-quest of my own. I rented a bike and took it all the way to a nearby town. One of my favorite parts of Europe is the small, quiet towns. They seem to always radiate a calm and peace that I don't see in other countries.After cycling back, I decided to do some sightseeing on my way back to the hostel. I came across some really neat fountains outside the Sisi Museum. There was quite a few of them, but this was my favorite. The detail and expression in the characters was awe-inspiring.I enjoyed the number of quiet parks, this one was outside the Maria-Theresien-Platz. Many of them had signs saying to keep off the grass, but many of them seemed to have locals who paid those signs no mind.After exploring the city for a bit, I made my way back to the hostel. I grabbed my guitar and took it up to play some music on the rooftop, just in time for the sunset.The next day, we regrouped and met up with Benny and spent the afternoon walking around the city center. Here's the famous St. Stephen's Cathedral.A nice park that I stumbled upon, with a center pond and fountain.After wandering the city, we all found one of the parks to sit in and enjoy some conversation and cold beers. From left to right; Camden, Benny and myself.Later in the day, we met up with some of the friends we made in Budapest and spent the early evening wandering around the fair grounds. We rode a ferris wheel while we were there. From left to right; Wesley, myself, Phoebe, Monica and JoJo.We timed the ferris wheel ride perfectly to enjoy this beautiful sunset at the top.Another photo of our group while exploring the fair grounds. Phoebe and Monica were from London, and we just so happened to bump into them at a bar. JoJo was from Australia, and stayed at the same hostel as Camden and Wesley in Budapest.After riding the ferris wheel, we all headed out to dinner. While I didn't take a picture of the food, I tried the only local staple that seemed appealing to me; the infamous Weiner Schnitzle.After dinner, we went out to a bar nearby and grabbed some drinks. Pheebs made this funny montage of everyone wearing my glasses, which apparently is a current TikTok trend.That night concluded with one of my favorite memories from the trip. We decided to go back to the hostel to relax. I wanted to play guitar, but didn't want to annoy the others in the area. To my delight, they not only were okay with me playing but asked to join! We spent a few hours doing makeshift karaoke, me playing guitar and the whole group singing along.After the original group we were with dissipated, I noticed another group of locals who had started a similar song circle. I introduced myself, and while they didn't speak much English they had one boy who was really ecstatic about Whitney Houston. I pulled up the lyrics to the only song by her that I knew, and had a hysterical time singing All I Want For Christmas Is You with a group of Austrian kids. One of my favorite memories!